Tuesday's letters: We need to be reminded

Tuesday

Aug 6, 2013 at 12:01 AM

Regarding the July 30 letter from Vivian Bradburn of Union (regarding Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman), who stated that if everyone had acted with civility that fateful night all of this could have been avoided: She seems to overlook the fact that if Zimmerman had stayed in his car, none of this would have happened.

Regarding the July 30 letter from Vivian Bradburn of Union (regarding Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman), who stated that if everyone had acted with civility that fateful night all of this could have been avoided: She seems to overlook the fact that if Zimmerman had stayed in his car, none of this would have happened.As for newscasters talking this story to death, they were stressing a problem that needs to be pulled out, looked at and solved.As for the last paragraph of her letter, I agree that we should act reasonably and with courtesy. But we all live in a world in which that just is not happening. Until such time as a change occurs, we need to be reminded or there will be more Trayvon Martins in the future.Vondalyn ReddickMoore

All my life, I’ve had to bear some scorn for being a Southern-born white person. We Southerners are often portrayed recklessly by the media distorting the truth about how much we and our ancestors tortured black people in the South. The stigma caused by these distortions continues to sour white people’s relationships with black people, who we have helped as much as some have really helped themselves.

I cannot defend isolated cases of hateful white-against-black crimes any more than a black person can defend the frequent black-against-white crimes. For myself, with guidance by Our Creator, I have earnestly tried to be a friend to all.Why do our media contribute to this dreadful pot that continues to boil? An example is found in Sunday’s Parade Magazine. Oprah Winfrey is quoted as saying when she hears the “N-word,” she “always thinks of the millions of people who heard that as their last word as they were hanging from a tree.” Really? Millions?Oprah is a respected woman, and people reading such trash might believe that if she said it, it’s the truth. Thus, the spiral of racial hatred is further ingrained. Neither I, my father or my grandfather new of any local lynchings.So where across the vast South did these alleged “millions” of black lynchings occur? I know of no reliable statistics, but could there have been just 1 million? Or even just hundreds of thousands? Or possibly just hundreds? Whatever the number, we all agree that such crimes were unjustified by any of the standards of this present generation; however, our judgments are after the fact.Parade Magazine and our media in general bear a responsibility to abstain from publishing terrible distortions like this one that Oprah possibly unwittingly has spread. Parade has thus caused irreversible damage to racial harmony.Max TroutCampobello